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In Praise of Autism

September 23, 2009 6:32 amSeptember 23, 2009 6:32 am

Today’s idea: Autistics deserve better appreciation for their contributions to higher learning, one article says. And they should be recruited in information technology because they have “a preternatural capacity for concentration and near-total recall,” another says.

Health | Two recent articles suggest a sea change in attitudes toward those with the brain development condition. The most recent, in Wired magazine, highlights the hiring of autistics in information technology as one of the “12 shocking ideas that could change the world.” The focus of Drake Bennett’s brief article is a Danish entrepreneur who formed an I.T. consultancy made up mostly of people with autism-spectrum disorders, who troubleshoot software for companies like Microsoft and Cisco Systems.

Before that, Tyler Cowen, an economics professor who contributes to The Times, used the platform of the Chronicle of Higher Education to fault fellow academics for bigoted-sounding research dehumanizing autistics, and didn’t stop there:

The more complex reality is that there is a lot more autism in higher education than most of us realize. It’s not just “special needs” students but also our valedictorians, our faculty members, and yes —sometimes —our administrators.

That last sentence is not some kind of cheap laugh line about the many dysfunctional features of higher education. Autism is often described as a disease or a plague, but when it comes to the American college or university, autism is often a competitive advantage rather than a problem to be solved. One reason American academe is so strong is because it mobilizes the strengths and talents of people on the autistic spectrum so effectively. In spite of some of the harmful rhetoric, the on-the-ground reality is that autistics have been very good for colleges, and colleges have been very good for autistics.

While one can appreciate the spirit of this piece, the reality is anything but glossy. Autism and related spectrum learning and behavior disorders are profound and debilitating. For every high functioning child with Asperger’s there are ten with disabilities so profound that they will never be able to keep themselves fed, let alone work in IT.

This confuses the very high functioning autism spectrum disorder population with others with more serious and less functional forms of the syndrome. For most people “on the spectrum” these notions of possible achievement are absurd and undermine the urgency of demands for medical research, mandatory insurance coverage of many therapies, and organized support for families with a child/children with autism. One should experience life with families with lower functioning autistic children before expressing nonsense about “autism” in general.

I welcome this perspective looking up at the stars, not down at our feet.

When he was younger, it was hard to see, but now, as my son enters adulthood, there are days when it is clear that his Aspergers syndrome holds the key to a bright future. He has a tremendous potential, and thanks to appropriate schooling, he still has his self-esteem in tact.

It is not just contributions to higher learning that has been overlooked by researchers. Those with Aspergers have a unique set of skills and gifts that academicians, researchers, employers, colleagues, neighbors, friends, and yes – lovers – can cherish.

Why not inclusion? Why is easy to accept a very “shy” person or accept a foreign that do not speak proper language and not one ASD? The borderlines are very blurry on the “diversity” acceptance also. We only can earn with precision and concentration capacity. In areas where a single mistake can destroy several human lives, the precision of autistic people would be extremelly wellcome.

I work in an IT department, at a college too, and I’m the only one with Asperger’s. It is not fun, and believe me, no-one “praises autism.” Instead, I am ignored, ostracized, shunned, treated like a child, and expected to know everything or nothing, depending on mood of my boss. How I wish I had a normal working brain, that I could understand the politics of the office, figure out how meetings work, not get angry when my boss double-checks my work or pits me against someone else for the right answer, or even how to collect department information “at the water cooler”. Everyone else in the department can do this. With one exception, I’m not invited to any of the social events – and there are many. And those are only the ones I know about. I usually hear about some dinner or picnic after-the-fact.

#2 is right. In addition, not everyone who is socially inept, prefers solitude, has offbeat and obsessive enthusiasms that almost no one else shares, or has unusual habits, is high-functioning autistic or an aspie. Sometimes you’re just eccentric. I know, because I am eccentric. My life and my world are very much like #5’s – except that I am not autistic. My older sister IS autistic, so I know what autism looks like.

There are a heck of a lot of self-diagnosed autistics and aspies walking around – it really has become fashionable, now that linking it to high intelligence rather than retardation, and throwing out Dr. Bettelheim’s harmful dogma, have removed some of the stigma. It is also a convenient label to hide behind to compel people to excuse bad behaviour and selfishness. (I’m not saying any of the posters above necessarily fall into that category, so please don’t assume.)

As the mother of an elementary school aged child with autism I applaud the sea change in the attitudes toward people with autism. My hope is that changing attitudes will shift beliefs toward acceptance of people with autism spectrum disorder. So much so that anyone on the spectrum can believe it is okay to be different, it is okay to have autism. Additionally, history provides many examples of the contributions made by those who thought about things differently, and with tremendous focus. But to develop the talents of children on the spectrum – or any child – we need more support for public education. Resources for public education are dwindling. The odds of a child with autism making it to college improve with effective early education. Good public education is important for all our children and for the rest of us that will benefit from their contributions.

As a person unemployed and really suffering from an autism spectrum disorder, I wish to refute what Tyler Corwin and others are saying. Many of the ideas he presents are stereotypes. Vernon Smith has no ASD. He has never been diagnosed by a clinician. He just one day decided that he was on the spectrum based on the results of a self-administered AQ test.

It is unfortunate that an article would equate brilliant, accomplished individual with Asperger’s with “Autistics”. Such persons life realities have nothing in common with that of my son who is severely autistic – Autistic Disorder. He communicates at a level much below his chronological age of 13 and requires constant adult supervision for his own safety.

There are many severely impaired persons with Autistic Disorder, some mentally challenged with limited understanding of the world, some who engage in serious self injury. For the severely autistic, like my son, the professors and entrepreneurs with Aspergers and High Functioning Autism have no example, insight or inspiration of value to them.

When my (spectacular) difficulties are publicly reported, this is considered to represent “real” autism. Behaviours I have and skills I lack are routinely used by nonautistics to scare the public about autism. The resulting public fear makes my life more difficult and precarious.

But when my achievements are publicly reported, there is outrage that autism should be trivialized this way. There are claims that I must be a fake and a fraud and that I could not possibly know anything about “real” autism.

It is routinely claimed that reporting the achievements of autistics–a great variety of autistics, who fail to fit prevailing stereotypes and who often also have extreme difficulties– somehow devalues autistics and harms us. It is as though there is something dangerous and repugnant about associating autism with achievements.

What if other disabled people were seen this way? Successful blind academics would be denounced as not “really” blind. Successful people with Down syndrome would be denounced as knowing nothing about “real” Down syndrome. And so on.

Tyler Cowen has correctly pointed out that this view of autism, in which autistics are defined as failures and reports of autistic achievements are invariably denounced, is hardly scientific or ethical.

I am a parent of a significantly autistic child. I’m not sure what his functioning level will be when he’s looking for a job, but right now his disability is very apparent and often makes his life difficult. It also severely limits many of the things our family can do together.

I totally disagree with the commentors here that say if you had a severely autistic child discussions of the value of autistics in the workforce are a waste of time. I want my son to be included in society and included in a mainstream classroom. For that to happen society must see the value of my child and his potential. The discussion of the value of the different viewpoints those with Aspergers bring helps our argument. Although there is extra work to include him, there is payoff. Even if my son doesn’t enter the workforce, the kids that have been in class with him will be more compassionate towards their co-workers who are on the spectrum.

On the other hand, the continual demonization of autism and how it has ruined this or that plan or path is not helpful to us. When it’s implied that autism has taken our “real” child away from us, why should society waste it’s time on the dregs that are left? As parents of more significantly affected autistic kids we have to convince society to accept our kids and find value in them. That means we have to do the same ourselves. The next step is to strongly object when anyone tells us that autism is (and by association, our kids are) a disaster and the only solution is eradication.

Articles about Autism or Asperger’s Syndrome tend to have a supporting premise that “we think we can make them normal.” Well, normal people start wars. Autistic people would never do that because of a extreme dislike of conflict. Normal people caused the credit crisis. Autistic people would never do that because to spend dramatically more than you earn is illogical.

George Bush was clearly not autistic, but maybe the world would be better if he was.

“Vernon Smith has no ASD. He has never been diagnosed by a clinician. He just one day decided that he was on the spectrum based on the results of a self-administered AQ test.”

Did Vernon Smith ever receive a diagnosis by a clinician? As the parent of a child on the spectrum, I’m becoming very frustrated with the ever increasing number of adults who are self-diagnosed. They give a false impression and skew public perception of autism. Most of our children, diagnosed by neurologists, developmental pediatricians and other well-trained medical professionals, will NEVER be capable of the accomplishments of these individuals who claim to be Aspies. Reporters and bloggers who profile these “Aspies” owe it to their readers to get the specifics of their diagnoses.

People are simply different.
Some people are good at remembering stuff, others are not.
Some people are good at playing hockey, other are not.
Some people like to cook, others do not.
People are simply different.

Why do doctors have to come up with a disease for everything? Maybe the guy who signed himself with “no name please, i have it hard enough at work” is simply extremely ugly or shy for some reason. Or maybe he just grew up in an unsupportive family, which left him with some serious psychological trauma. (Personally, though, I think he just hates admitting he’s ugly and that’s all.)

And so it’s normal to do reckless stuff – like to binge drink, to have wild premarital sex or to smoke pot – but for some reason it’s not normal to enjoy reading or spending some time alone every now and then? Just who decides what is normal in a society?!? By the way, now that I brought up the reckless lifestyle thing – are all diehard Christians from the Bible Belt in the South suffering from ADDs? Because all they seem to be good at is being obsessed with a book, and preaching to everybody about how it’s The Truth.

Or maybe it’s just wishful thinking on the part of those who lead an immoral lifestyle, who are probably thinking something like, “It’s okay to go in debt; only retards (i.e. autists) lack the societal skills to understand how cool it is to go in debt.” You can substitute “go in debt” with “get laid,” “get wasted,” “get high,” and so on. And maybe the “no name please…” guy’s boss was made fun of at school, so now that he has found someone weaker than himself, he makes up for having been a loser his entire life before that.

Anyway, it got kind of long. Just get real, and stop believing everything some scientist or doctor tells you about life. Form an idea of it yourselves.

It is common sense that we should accept more each other and this has nothing to do with Bible. It is also commom sense that society has evoluted very little since 5000 years, when it was already invented ways the weel and the way we live in society today.
We need to recognize differences to get acceptance because human being are afraid of what is different.Human being need to put in a drawn to understand were they stand for.
We should not pray acceptance of some while we exclude others. Ideally, all of us, would be accepted despite our differences and wishes to “read or not read bible”, “not talk to someone or be talkative”, “being weak or strong” and so on.
To whom define himself as autistics and to their families, Please, forgive our ignorance. Hope we will not need 100 years more to acomplishe and recognize we are all just “diverse”. To the scientist, please, bring up more ideas to this discussion, it is too poor. Society need more science input to have discussions in a decent level.

The reality of Autism is a lifelong and often disabling condition, and will always be. Accepting that fact, these kind of initiatives and this attitude seems to be the spirit that autistics will benefit from the most.

While Vernon L Smith is so-called “high-functioning”, the initiatives of for example Thorkil Sonne does not exclude “lower-functioning” Autistics, and shouldn’t.

I am tired of children being labeled “Asperger’s” and then taken out of regular class-rooms with their classmates, and put into classes with other children and taught to recognize facial patterns and when others don’t like them. There has always been a word for these kids: nerds. Geeks. Valedictorians. And the other kids usually didn’t like them because they studied so much and did so well. I am not denying that this is a personality type combined with a strong brain. What I do deny is that these children should be labeled as having a learning deficiency and taken out of regular classes, where they can beat their classmates fair and square and get into the best colleges. Now, they are labeled as freaks and the other kids can get into the colleges, while these “Asperger’s” kids scored better on the standardized tests, but will now be lucky to get a job flipping burgers at McDonalds after such labeling! I am further angered by this because I read that a majority of those “with Asperger’s” are Ashkenazi (European) Jewish boys. So, they are saying that the other kids don’t like the Jewish geniuses in the class, so pull the Jewish geniuses out of class and label them as learning disabled, even though they learn better than everyone else. If you are concerned about these kids, just have a school psychologist on hand for all kids at all times, to give anyone advice who needs it. And teach kids to be loving towards their classmates, not cruel. That should solve the problem of kids picking on other kids who do well on tests! No more discrimination against Jews!

The “autustic spectrum” is indeed a spectrum, No one knows the etiologies of this group of anamolies. Caused by one, two, three… or more causes…, or each incident is separate: a combination of various genes. perhaps interacting with the a pernicious pre-natal environment.

The most dibilitating kind of autism precules the most basic kinds of functioning and communication with others — beginning with the mother before age two.

Ausberger’s is also within the “spectrum” and most of them have deficient social skills — but, many make up for this by manifesting amazing cognitive and intellectual skills.

I am sure that a disproportioate number of Nobel Prize winners (especially in the sciences, medicine and economics) have some degree of this spectrum — a spectrum which few lay persons have any understanding of.

Well, how do I say this without sounding insensitive, or worse, politically incorrect? Ok, here it goes: the freaks run the world…there I said it. We all have that feeling, don’t we… it’s always the strangest of people who are in charge of important things. They run the governments, the universities, corporations, and they may even have the fingers on the nuclear button…poor normal people. Psychologists ever have a clinical name for us, neuro-typicals (NT). Doesn’t sound very encouraging. Yes, normal people do all the grudge work. We clean the toilets, pave the streets, open the entrance doors, drive the cabs, and fights the wars. Who’s the really handicapped one, anyway? Yes people with Asperger syndrome (high functioning autism) do have this ‘gift’. They do have this huge, gigantic even, memory banks, and if you ever have the misfortune of being locked in room with them, they will tell you every minute details (to the atomic level) of their interests in a field you hardly you hardly give a damn about. They will talk you to death about it, enough to make your brain ache. I have empathy for this these people with their brains all wired different and all, but I also avoid them like the plague whenever I can. Coincidentally, people with Asperger are notorious for having little concern for you business or empathy of any type…let’s make sure we don’t give them access to the nuclear bomb, any time soon, unless they already have already! God have mercy.

Anyone could have predicted that there would be debate in these comments about the disparities in abilities and opportunities between the so-called “aspies” and the so-called low-functioning autistic people/children. One thing that one NEVER sees is acknowledgement that the autistic spectrum is NOT one uniform thing that is found in a broad spectrum of intensities, it is a widely abused diagnostic category which is applied to a wildly heterogeneous range of people, often for the primary purpose of gaining access to government services and payments for the care of the child/person diagnosed. It seems pointless to have debates about the meaning of such a messed-up and abused concept as “autism”.

Just today I read a statement in a magazine that the cause of autism is still a mystery. What rot! I have read about supposedly autistic people who have also been medically diagnosed with genetic syndromes such Kleinfelter’s syndrome, Tuberous scerosis, Cohen syndrome and Down syndrome. Kids who have Fetal alcohol syndrome are being given Asperger syndrome as a diagnosis because that diagnosis is the one that will bring services. I have met a child who is apparently autistic as the result of a brain infection in infancy. The first “symptoms” of his “autism” were missed developmental milestones in a range of different areas. I have heard of siblings apparently diagnosed with Asperger syndrome who just happen to have many cases of early-onset dementia in among their immediate family. Is this really AS? Apparently some autistic people respond to a gluten-free diet. I’m tempted to wonder if their autism is in fact intellectual impairment resulting from years of malnutrition as a result of undiagnosed celiac diesease. Apparently rare metabolic diseases are known causes of some cases of autism. I’m sure there are many genuine cases of autism and Asperger syndrome out there, but in many cases we know perfectly well that the so-called autism is actually a symptom of a disease or condition that is no mystery at all.

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